The city of Drosmere had always devoured its poor.
Years ago, when plague swept through the lower wards, Aiden's mother was among the first to fall. His father, once a caravan guard, never recovered from grief. Desperate to feed his son, he gambled with debts he could not repay. One winter's night, he vanished into the alleys, leaving Aiden with nothing but hunger and silence. Some whispered he had been cut down by his creditors. Others said he fled beyond the gates. For Aiden, the truth mattered little—he was alone.
Mocked as "the ghost," too frail to fight and too poor to matter, he drifted unseen among beggars and thieves. His life was not lived so much as endured. In a city ruled by banners and blood, he was less than nothing—just another forgotten child waiting to fade.
Until the night beneath the broken arch, when his hand brushed against something buried in the stone. A pendant, weathered but unbroken, its surface cool yet alive with a faint thrum. When he clasped it, warmth coursed through him, sharpening thought into clarity, chaos into patterns.
The boy who had been a ghost saw the city anew. Every coin, every whisper, every choice was a thread. And threads, if woven carefully, could form a ladder tall enough to reach even the banners of lords.
That night, the ghost was born again—not to haunt, but to rise.
And one day, those banners on the hill would not look down on him. They would bow.